In order to enable authorized signers on accounts to make fund transfers when distant from their bank's effective operating area, a territory which presently generally encompasses the limited range of telephone or computer link-ups, various services have been provided by means of such instrumentalities as credit cards, debit cards, traveller's checks, traveller's letters of credit and bankers drafts drawn on banking correspondents. Such instrumentalities, while providing desirable services and advantages, nevertheless suffer from a number of drawbacks and inconveniences both to the financial institutions and to the holders of such instrumentalities. None of them offer facilities for the account holder to negotiate a drawing on an electronic funds transfer (EFT) or routine encashment basis sufficiently secure to obviate the inconvenience and considerable expense of verification activities and other uncertainties, concurrent with effecting the negotiation, leading to transactions that cannot be completed, and delays.
The present invention has, as a principal objective, the providing of a novel system including a card type letter of credit device which, when used in combination with a novel draft, and a novel confirmation ticket bearing a unique transaction code, dictates the nature of any one of a number of accounting devices. One of such devices makes possible a set of financial procedures whereby the holder of such a device may conduct a negotiation on a letter of credit EFT basis, on which he has signing authority, with secure guarantees to the negotiating party that settlement of the transaction will be carried out expeditiously. The system may also include other types of fund transfer devices, such as credit card charges, and the like, each designed to operate within the system and providing alternative financial procedures with the same advantages as outlined above. In addition, such a new system provides a complete and current set of data to the holder, the issuer bank and the beneficiary bank, which data represents a duplicate record of that which is recorded on books of the issuer, and shows to both the negotiating party and the holder, the same details which are available to the issuer.